Facebook Social Plugins

In a move to take over the Internet, Facebook recently launched a series of social plug-in’s that make it super-simple for web publishers to integrate their site content with Facebook. Paraphrasing from a Tech Crunch article:

Google spends billions of dollars indexing the web for their search engine. Facebook will get the web to index itself, exclusively for Facebook. The entire Internet will be turned into a tributary system for Facebook. And it all flows from a simple “Like” gesture.

Facebook’s New Social Plugins:

Like Plugin – This plugin is simple and requires no login. It will show visitors to your site, which of their Facebook friends have engaged with your site recently. If a user likes something on your site with this button it automatically appears in their Facebook profile as well.

Activity Stream Plugin – This displays a filtered view of the Facebook News Feed containing updates from only your site.

Facebook Login Plugin – It works like the existing Facebook Connect login button, and it adds photos of your Facebook friends who have already joined the site.

Social Bar Plugin – A toolbar that is added to the bottom of your site. The Social Bar includes a Like button, friends who like the site, as well as Facebook chat.

Recommendations Plugin – A plugin that shows recommendations of items or content that visitors to your site may be interested in, based on recommendations from Facebook connections.

->Read more about Facebook Social Plugins @ Facebook Developer Blog.

In addition to these newer features, there’s another Facebook feature I’ve been meaning to blog about for awhile now. It’s a simple link Facebook displays below your albums or pictures called: Share this album with anyone by sending them this public link. Essentially you copy and paste this link into an email or website and, voila!, you have instant photo sharing with people who aren’t on Facebook!

You can have a look at a recent album I created by clicking on Grant Storry Through The Years. The significance of this new and simple to use feature is that it opens Facebook up to competing with photo specific sites like Flickr.com, Google’s Picasa, photobucket, and shutterfly.

Yes, Facebook is definitely a company to watch. Several years ago, after Microsoft invested in Facebook giving the company a $15 Billion valuation, I wondered how the one-trick pony would live up to the hype. After all, social networks have come and gone from Friendster to, arguably, Myspace. The direction Facebook is now headed, permeating it’s features throughout the Internet, now gives me some perspective on what Facebook’s endgame vision is. With traffic passing Google this March and shares trading at $17 Billion, Facebook is king of the hill.

From an online marketing perspective, competition is a good thing. Many online marketing gurus are turning to Facebook to round out their online ad budgets due to the affordability of Facebook ads over Google PPC Adwords. In addition to a cheaper place to advertise to well over 400 million Internet users on Facebook, the new social plugins allow us to engage customers and prospects at a whole new level.

Take my ridiculous Facebook Album, for example. I created all those photos on a site called Yearbookyourself.com by Jostens. Jostens is a class ring and yearbook production company. What a great use of social media & viral marketing by creating a microsite to “Yearbook Yourself”. The site allows you to either upload a pic of yourself or take one using your webcam. You can then edit your photo and fit it into either male or female classic yearbook photos from decades spanning the 60s-2000. You can then save the resulting photos to your computer or connect them directly to your Facebook account with a simple button click.

All photos are imprinted with a url to Josten’s microsite. Instantly, Jostens has the 400+ million people who are part of the Facebook community promoting their brand and driving traffic to their site in exchange for a goofy picture of themselves. Heck, they even have people like me blogging about it and spreading the word as well. Therein lies the power of social media marketing done right. This could get very interesting over the next several years, provided Facebook doesn’t scare everyone off with privacy concerns…

Social Media… such a fad.

I just came across this video (below) recently and I think it’s been put together rather well. Due to a little incident at work today the message was a little more poignant. Social media sure has put some serious power in the hands of anyone who has an axe to grind or praises to sing- for better or worse. Enlightened companies and brand managers really have to start taking this medium extremely seriously. I always like the Cluetrain Manifesto as a good read to get a strong understanding of the sentiment and new landscape social media propels us all into. Apparently this university made twitter a required class for journalism students. I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot more of this as newspapers struggle to survive.

Anthropology and Web 2.0

Having spent all of my post secondary years in the business faculty, there was little occasion nor encouragement to venture outside the “business building” and explore the many other wonderful and stimulating disciplines actively being taught mere steps away. In fact, 97% of all my lectures occurred in 2 classrooms deep in the bowels of the Faculty of Business’ red brick building on the outskirts of the UVIC campus near the edge of ring road. Now, I’m not complaining. In fact, it was exactly what I signed up for and I have no regrets about my choices in university and where they’ve taken my life/career thus far. However, I have always enjoyed the humanities and find I gravitate effortlessly towards their discourse wherever I can find it. Hence, my love for the History channel and A&E programming in general- dirty little secret.

Pretty much my whole day-job revolves around the Internet and online technologies (currently optimizing ways to utilize them for, what I consider, constructive, non-interruptive marketing). I figure it’s the least of all evils in the world of marketing. Anyway, what’s my point? I guess, where I’m headed with this post, is that it is completely refreshing to look at the same tools, media, and technology that consume my day as a marketer through the lens of a completely different discipline that has drastically different objectives and uses significantly different language to analyse, catalog, and chronicle their use.

Enter the world of anthropology and the video by professor Michael Wesch created in 2007 titled: The Machine Is Us/ing Us. Have a look below:

Pretty cool commentary. I decided to check out more of Prof. Wesch’s stuff and found his antropolgical introduction to Youtube a captivating watch. Have a look at it here:

Why this moved me to blog:

1. I got to see the same old technologies viewed through a different lens. Seeing something awe-inspiring for the first time is always an unforgettable experience. Reliving some of the excitement I felt for the Internet years ago when I first pontificated on all its commercial applications by being able to view the same medium for all of its humanistic applications and impacts is refreshing. [that's hardly to say that I don't realize the human side of the 'net on a regular basis, but sometimes something has to bonk you on your head to shift your presence into a different train of thought, this video did that for me]
2. The production quality is good and content stimulating
3. It’s pretty awesome to see a professor who can really adapt their curriculum and teaching style to connect with their students. They are rare, and I’ve always always appreciated those special professors who can make a course “come to life” for their classes
4. It gives me an excuse to blog and use long, poorly constructed, run-on sentences

Further reading here.

Thanks to Wordspring for linking to this video, reminding me it existed, and the several hours I found myself lost in anthro-speak / analysis.

New Search Engine “Hunch” launches today

A co-founder of the popular photo site Flickr just announced the official launch of her new search engine “Hunch” today. The team has raised $2 million in funding. The engine asks you a series of questions to narrow down what results to provide.

While it doesn’t “know” a lot right now, the whole engine is built on machine learning that will improve accuracy and breadth with use and time.

I asked it what I should have for lunch and it did manage to figure out I was in the mood for spicey food. I then went to Noodle Box and MAN did lunch hit the spot! Hunch’s hunch was right

Read more here:

VatorNews – Hunch launches today.